Taken By Storm (24 page)

A lot riskier.
 

We plan out the route like we're breaking into a bank vault on the Vegas strip instead of walking in the front door of the Summit.

This one we arrange through my old boss, Laura, with the help of our former receptionist-turned-PR-rep, Alice. If I can count on anything, it's that Alice will want to spoke Gregor's bicycle wheel at least as much as anyone else does.
 

When we pull up to the Summit at four in the afternoon on the second Thursday in December, me and all the shades are packed into the Channel Five news vans.
 

We don't warn Alamea that we're coming.
 

Just about every business in Nashville would point a loaded shotgun at me for turning up at their doorstep, but I've worked with at least four of the Channel Five anchors throughout my time in PR. Most of them worked their way up from slinging coffees to landing a spot behind the bench at primetime. Not only do they owe me favors for sharing publicity stories with them, but if there's anything you can count on in journalism, it's that scandal makes story.

I'm betting the farm and all the chickens on it that a censured Mediator waltzing into the Summit building with a bunch of shades and three other Mediators at her back counts as scandalous.

The camera people get out first, and through the windshield of the van I'm in, I can see a few Mediators milling around the parking lot, wondering what's going on. Mira looks at me, a tense grin on her face. Carrick, Evis, and Jax all sit perfectly still where they are.

"Ready to walk into the hornet's nest?"
 

I try to return her grin, but fail. "I just hope the news people count as enough smoke to get us out alive."

Ripper and Devon are in the other van with the rest of the shades, and as soon as the crews are all set up, Candy, one of the anchors who left her cushy desk just to do this for me, gives me a hand signal.

"Here we go."

Mira and I get out of the van, which shields us from view of the Mediators in the parking lot.
 

Candy's hair is in that perfect news anchor helmet of blonde curls and hairspray, and one of the production assistants holds a blue polka dotted umbrella over her. "You ready?"

"Are we live?"
 

She nods, pointing at the red light on the front of the camera pointing her way. She speaks into her wireless microphone, and the PA gestures at me to follow Candy's lead. The PA steps away with the umbrella and leans it against one of the vans.

"We're here live at the Nashville Summit today for an unprecedented story. Ayala Storme, former Mediator for the Summit and lifelong resident of Nashville, is a woman on the run. Censured by the Summit for fraternizing with the half-hellkin, half-human hybrids manufactured by demonkind to upset the very balance her organization is sworn to uphold, Ayala is here today with her own side of this story, brought to you exclusively by Channel Five's news team." Candy gives some scientific background on the shades as we walk toward the Summit building.
 

My heart is somewhere lodged between my esophagus and my trachea, but as the camera pans by me, I give it a solemn look, hoping I don't look quite as ready to barf as I feel. The shades have all fallen in behind me, with Devon and Ripper at the tail end of the line. The camera gets a good look at all of them, the shades in their usual full monty and Devon and Ripper both looking ready to fight anyone who comes at them. Mira's by my side, and she leans into my shoulder once.
 

"Breathe," she says.

The PA bustles over to us. "Once we get inside, she'll turn the mic on you so you can talk. Watch the swearing."

"If I drop any f-bombs, you can bill the Summit," I mutter at him.

To my surprise, he beams at me, then hurries back to the front of the line to open the Summit door for us.

Candy looks at me, and the PA waves his hand at me from out of the camera frame. I walk up to stand beside her as she keeps speaking. We're standing in the center of the Summit building, directly over the yin yang symbol on the floor that has been the Mediator sigil since the first Summit began in Asia eons ago. "It's no secret that the Mediators live dangerous lives on the front lines of a nightly war. They have no families. They often have few friends or connections. Their lives from the earliest days of their existence are dictated by a grueling training schedule and the terror of facing nightmares every sundown to make sure the rest of us wake up safe. This summer, it was Ayala who first encountered the hybrid demons, called shades, who you see here. Ayala, can you tell us about that? What was it like?"

I notice she's specifically using my first name. It's a good trick, a psychological cue that I'm human, comfortable, accessible. I nod at her, willing my stomach to be calm.

"When I first encountered the shades, I thought they were pure demon, even though they looked human." I look at Candy and not the camera, just like she told me to. Dimly, I'm aware of the Mittens at the front desk flailing with his phone and squawking into it. I ignore him. "At first they behaved like it. But during the biggest operation against them, which I helped plan and execute, resulting in the deaths of over twenty shades, one of them saved my life."

"That's remarkable," Candy says. She looks directly into the camera. "You saved the life of another Mediator that night, is that right? He's here with us today."

The camera pans to look at Devon, who nods at it.
 

"The shades took him, and he believes at first that they just wanted to talk with him." This is the first time any Mediator outside my circle is hearing this. I hope it makes them think, especially because he's standing right here to confirm the truth of what I'm saying. "In his fear, he tried to fight them, and that's when it got violent. I managed to get him out."

"That must have been terrifying."

"At that point, it was the most terrified I had ever been in my life."

I know I've said the right thing, because Candy's eyes glint at me like she's a bloodhound who's just caught wind of its prey.

"So since that point, you've been more afraid than you were then. Tell us, please, about that night."

I can hear the humming buzz of the camera zooming in on me, and I do my best not to look at it. I don't have to pretend any emotion when I think of that night. When I swallow, it's because I can remember every sensation, every smell, every sound around me. But this is where it gets tricky, because I have to tell the absolute truth.
 

"The shades had made a nest in a warehouse down by the river. There were between twenty and twenty-five of them there." Twenty-three. Mason told me. "The warehouse was where they brought their kills to feed. It was covered in blood and rotting flesh on the inside. When I went in after Devon, I couldn't see it clearly. It was pitch black. It wasn't until someone got the lights on that I could see where I was and what surrounded me."

"And what was it that surrounded you?" Candy asks gently.

"Death." I close my eyes, knowing the camera is on me. Again I see the flash of bright light that almost blinded me. The flash I thought at first was the explosion that would kill me along with all the shades. I don't realize I'm saying all of it aloud until Candy touches my arm. I open my eyes. "…Every shade in that warehouse rushed me at that moment. But one of them saved me."

"Is that shade here with you today?"

"No. But he's the one who helped me find them."

"Tell us about them."

Footsteps pound up and down the halls around us, but every Mediator in this building knows if they interrupt me on live television, there will be a whole other kind of hell to pay.
 

I walk up to Jax, touching his shoulder lightly. To the audience at home, it'll just look like a friendly gesture. To Jax, it'll mean he's safe.
 

"This is Jax. His mother was a man called Jack from Crossville. Jax remembers that his mother loved whiskey and Johnny Cash and that when he was a child, his father used to hold him and tell him stories about spaceships and aliens. Jax loves his friends fiercely and would do anything for them. He's good at first person shooter games…" One by one I introduce each of the shades, my shades, to the people of Nashville and the rest of the world I know will be watching.

By the time I get to Evis, I have tears rolling down my cheeks. I don't care that they're streaking the makeup the Channel Five people slapped on my face.

"This is Evis. His mother was Eve Storme, and she was my mother too." Even though the news crew was expecting it, I still see them jump. "I had been looking for my mother and discovered that she'd gone missing six months before. Gregor Gaskin set me to look into other disappearances. He never told me he'd found my brother. The footage is out there. Most of you have seen what happened a few weeks back in this very building."

I point upward, and the camera pans up to where scaffolding still remains, though they've already fixed the giant dome above our head.
 

"Gregor Gaskin manipulated my brother. The shades are thrown into this world in the most violent fashion imaginable. Their mothers are immediately killed by the birth. They have no families. No one to raise them. No point of reference for morality except the memories in their heads, memories which come, without exception, from the minds of hells-zealots. They are carnivores, and they are often born in or near urban centers where the only readily available animal is us. But these shades are not mindless. They are not savage. They are strong and powerful, yes, but they are not without compassion. Guilt. Fear. They are, like we are, mortal."
 

On the stairs, I see a tall, familiar shape. Alamea.
 

"Is there anything you want to say to Gregor Gaskin, Ayala? If he's watching?"

Now I do look at the camera. I haven't looked down that lens once since I walked through this door, but now I turn my gaze on it, see myself reflected back in the shining lens.
 

I smile, long and slow, letting the edges of my lips curl up. Knowing it doesn't reach my eyes.
 

Then I turn back to Candy. "I have nothing to say to him. But I'll be seeing him very soon."

I know the people at home just got a good long look at my eyes. I did it on purpose. My eyes and the rumors about me have been the biggest weapon the Summit's been using against me. I'm wearing a thin black t-shirt, and I turn until my back faces the camera, peeling the shirt up over my back.
 

"In case any of you are wondering, this tattoo is the reason my eyes have changed color." I lower my shirt. "I'm not a shade. I'm still a Mediator. I still feel the weight of the imbalance pressing within my chest. The shades you see here today are people who have fought demons beside me. They have traveled with me to stop a new influx of their brethren who seem to have been bred with the express purpose of expunging the free will and humanity these shades have. They are not your enemies. And neither am I."

"Who is the enemy, Ayala?" Candy asks. Her eyes are wet with tears.
 

"It's always the same enemy," I say. "That hasn't changed. The enemy is whatever comes out of the hells and tries to take our lives and our land. There are five species of humanity now. We all have a common goal."

"And what is that?"

"To live."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Summit is in such disarray that we're able to walk right back out without incident, flanked by the news crews. The phone at the front desk is ringing, and no one's answering it.

For the first time in a long time, I feel like I won something.

As we reach the vans, Mira clasps my arm. "You were amazing. Gregor's got to be pissing himself right now."

"It's going to piss him off, that's for sure." I pull out my phone and text Alamea.

Surprise. Tell the Summit to get ready. Gregor will try and retaliate.

I'm sure she's thrilled that I sprung this on her, but I don't really care. I probably just did more for the eventual stability of the Summit than anyone has in the past three months. While the Mediators won't care for it — that I can guarantee — I just put a spotlight on them, and they know it.

All of the infighting, all the factions splitting — if the Nashville Summit can't get its shit together and face the real foe, the front we were born to face, they'll have a really hacked off city to deal with.
 

I've never kicked an ant hill this big. At least I can run away.

Once we're back in the van, Candy turns around from the front seat. "That was good, Ayala. You can tell you used to work in PR."

"Do I get a cookie?"

"You can have all the cookies you want if you can make this city safe again."

"I don't know if it was ever safe." That's an understatement, but I know how much of what the Summit does that goes unseen by the rest of the world. We create their little illusory bubble. Maintaining it is part of our job description.

Candy looks at me, her blue eyes thoughtful. "Off the record, what are you going to do to this Gregor character when you find him?"